Barbecue grilling of meats and other foods is popular both in the home and in restaurants because of the unique flavors obtained by cooking over open coals. However, preparing coals is often tedious because of the time required to ignite the coals and raise their temperature to that proper for cooking. Present designs of barbecues often are such that an ideal broiling temperature is never achieved. Furthermore, the common conventional barbecue releases to the atmosphere noxious gases and particulate matter both during the ignition and cooking stages. This is particularly a problem in close areas, for example, patios where adjacent structures are dirtied from fly ash and oily smoke emitted during cooking. Additionally, where charcoals are used, there is usually a problem of spark release which constitutes a fire hazard, particularly in the environment conventional barbecues are used because of the often close proximity of structures. These and other problems have made the conventional barbecue less than satisfactory for an efficient and convenient charcoal grilling of meats and other foods.